Men's Cross Country

Santa Barbara, Calif. -
Senior Adam Boothe won his second straight Big West men's individual cross country championship to lead Cal Poly to its third straight title and the Mustang women had four runners place among the top-ten to win the 2000 women's team championship on Saturday at Glen Annie Golf Club in Santa Barbara.

The Cal Poly men's team won by a score of 33-63 over UC Santa Barbara and Utah State which finished tied for second. The Mustang women defeated 1999 champion UC Irvine 42-52 with the University of Idaho edging Utah State 78-79 for third place.

Boothe and UCSB junior Eric Gans ran neck-and-neck for most of the latter portion of the men's race with Boothe narrowly winning the 10-kilometer race in a time of 25:23.1. Gans finished only 1.5 seconds behind at 25:24.6 in one of the closest finishes in Big West history. In addition to Boothe, Cal Poly had three other runners (Paulo Carvalho, Avery Blackwell and David Ullibari) finish among the top-ten. Utah State's Steve Prescott and Mitch Zundel finished third and fourth respectively with times of 25:33.4 and 25:33.5.

In the women's race, UC Irvine's Kareen Nilsson won the individual title in an 8-kilometer time of 18:32.3. Cal Poly's Carolyn Jones finished second at 18:39.5 and Idaho's Jaime Stone was third at 18:42.2. Overall, the champion Mustangs had four runners finish among the top-ten while UC Irvine had three.

In addition to winning his second straight individual championship, Boothe was honored as the Big West Men's Athlete of the Year for the second year in succession. Nilsson, who finished seventh in last year's title meet, was named the Big West Women's Athlete of the Year. Cal Poly's Terry Crawford was named the Big West Women's Coach of the Year while she and assistant coach Mark Conover were named the Big West Men's Coaches of the Year.